A Canadian man who stole an iconic portrait of a Scowling Winston Churchill in a Brazen International Art Heist has been sentenced to prison, according to local media.
The portrait, known as Roaring Lion, disappeared from the walls of Ottawa’s Fairmont Château Laurier in 2022, which led to a multi -year police investigation.
According to the public broadcaster of Canada CBC, the man, Jeffrey Wood, argued in March guilty of fake, theft and trade in crime.
He was sentenced to prison for almost two years on Monday, local time, in a courthouse in Ottawa.
CBC reported that Justice Robert Wadden Wood said he was guilty of stealing a “cultural and historical” portrait that was a “point of national pride”.
Yousuf Karsh’s roaring lion portrait of Churchill was stolen in 2022. ((Reuters: Yara Nardi))
The judge said Wood was planning to use the money he received by selling the portrait to help his brother, according to the Toronto star.
“But his brother died that spring before Mr Wood received the proceeds from the sale,” Mr Wadden said in his decision.
‘Nothing but a big hole in the wall’
The famous portrait was broken in 1941 by Canadian photographer Yousuf Karsh, born in Armeen, just after Churchill gave an exciting war result to the Canadian Parliament.
The image is perhaps the most recognized of Churchill and spread wide, even on the British five pounds.
Karsh donated the photo to the Fairmont Château Laurier Hotel in 1998, where it hung in a reading room next to the main lobby.
The portrait was found in Italy. ((Reuters: Yara Nardi))
But in August 2022, Employee Bruno Lair noticed a problem with the frame – a thread where specialized locking bolts should have been.
The Ottowa police said that a fake print, complete with the signature of a forged artist, was where the original once hung a few months before it was discovered.
“In the beginning we had nothing but a big hole in the wall where this portrait should be, and not leads,” said lead researcher Detective Akiva Geller.
Searching starts for stolen portrait
The police said that a piece of tape attached to the fake, torn with teeth, had retained traces of saliva, but initially no similarities were found in the National DNA database.
Mr. Geller started searching auction houses and online offers around the world.
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He discovered a suspicious roaring lion print, who claimed to be from the Karsh estate, which was for sale at Sotheby’s in London.
The police said it had no history, the wrong framework, slight damage and was sold in May 2022, within the period of theft.
“The size was good, the signature was good – everything looked good,”
Mr Geller said.
Hotel extends to the public for help
In the meantime, the hotel called on people to submit photos of their visits to the location.
This was able to determine the police to determine that the real roaring lion had been stolen and had been replaced somewhere between December 25, 2021 and January 6, 2022.
To determine the seller, Mr. Geller initiated a request for “mutual legal aid treaty”.
Almost a year later, a series of documents confirmed the identity of the suspect such as Jeffrey Wood, a 43-year-old man from Powassan, Ontario.
The police said Wood had manufactured a Neps person and tried to sell the stolen portrait under a pseudonym.
The portrait was taken after Winston Churchill gave an exciting war result in 1941. ((Kurt Hutton/Picture Post/Hulton Archive/Getty Images))
‘War -carrying that he could have devoured me’
Mr. Geller obtained a house search for the Wood storage unit, where he discovered another roaring lion print and a toothbrush with a DNA match on the torn tape.
Wood was arrested on April 25 last year.
The buyer of the portrait, an Italian lawyer who did not know it was stolen, worked with the police to bring it back to Canada, where it was installed again in the hotel on November 15.
Mr. Karsh said earlier that the portrait “changed his life,” and added that he recorded the expression of Churchill immediately after picking a cigar from the mouth of the British leader.
“By the time I returned to my camera, he looked so warfare that he could have slipped me,” said Mr. Karsh.
“It was at the time I took the photo.”
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